


Recursion

by bessemerprocess



Category: Fake News RPF, Pundit & Broadcast Journalist RPF (US), Real News RPF
Genre: Gen, PRT, Retirement, Third Monday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-22
Updated: 2011-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-16 02:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/pseuds/bessemerprocess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time passes, things change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recursion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jesidres](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesidres/gifts).



There comes a time when none of their faces grace the airwaves anymore. Anderson retires first, to everyone's surprise. He refuses to explain, not even to Rachel. He just tells CNN goodbye, sells his apartment and moves up to a little house in Maine. They see him less and less, though he still comes down to the city once a year or so for lunch.

Jon goes soon after, handing over the reins to a guy who'd once been his intern. Rachel is relieved. Jon has been looking taut around the edges, and they all know he'd just been looking for the right person to give the job to before he left. Stephen follows. He lets his hair go gray and ditches all of his suits. Stephen loves an audience, but he still has one in Jon and so he is happy. She sees them rarely, but when she does, they are both smiling.

Keith lets his projects fade, spending more time with his baseball cards than with his media empire. More than the others, she makes time to see him when she's in the States.

Rachel doesn't retire. She lets the show go; after all, there is only so much she can do from behind a desk, and she's beginning to feel trapped by the conventions of cable news. Plus, she misses the tosses and the camaraderie and the snark. For a while she and Richard hit all the hot spots, and ducking bullets makes her feel alive for a moment or two, but it never quite lasts.

She tries for two years anyway, because Rachel's never been a quitter and there are moments where it feels like she is doing the most important thing in the world. In the end though, it's not what she wants, and so Richard pours her a glass of whiskey and puts her on a plane back to New York. Keith and Stephen are waiting at the airport.

"Where's Jon?" she asks when the hugging is over. She'd expected Keith, but Stephen without Jon always seems like half of a whole.

"He's down in DC yelling at some Senator," Stephen says, like this is a daily occurrence. The more things change, the more they stay the same. "He'll be back tomorrow."

"Anderson's still writing his epic masterpiece, but we used you as bait, so he'll be down tomorrow as well," Keith adds.

Both men speak the truth, and the next day Rachel finds herself sitting at table with these men of hers, sipping a mojito.

Jon and Stephen keep up a steady banter, something about the latest Congressional scandal and halibut. Anderson talks about elephants and the rain forest and his book, and Keith just keeps trying to argue that his Yankees will win the pennant this year.

Rachel makes a case for the Red Sox, tells the story of the first time she came face to face with a hippopotamus, suggests that the real Congressional gossip is actually the thing about the fainting goat, and finally feels like she's right where she's meant to be.


End file.
